


Shadowboxing

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Gen, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-22
Updated: 2008-03-22
Packaged: 2019-02-13 13:43:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12985290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It’s Sam that notices her first, full body bump into Dean’s side to get him to shut up already before seventeen years of cocky confidence gets over itself and looks around.





	Shadowboxing

 

The boys meet Amelia for the first time the summer she turns thirteen, fresh faced and fresh attitude wrinkling her nose up at Bobby’s house like she’s slumming it there instead of being in the high society of Topeka. Amelia’s lived with her mom since the divorce back when she was two, no recollection of her dad except for the gifts that are always a little too young for her and the clothes that are never quite right. But now her mom’s off to Hawaii, first honeymoon with the second husband and Amelia is not invited along for the ride. So she gets dropped off with Bobby, tears streaming down her face when she’s left sitting on his wraparound porch with her bags at her feet; nothing but dust and dogs swirling around her shoulders.

Bobby lets her be; he knows how to handle a poltergeist better than a thirteen-year old girl.

The Winchesters roll into the yard two days later, the rock music pouring out of the speakers declaring that it’s Dean driving the Impala, followed by the second rumble of the pickup close on his tail. The fall out into the yard, whooping it up over their last hunt before Bobby can get out the door and warn them that he’s got company. It’s Sam that notices her first, full body bump into Dean’s side to get him to shut up already before seventeen years of cocky confidence gets over itself and looks around.

Amelia watches them, wide eyes taking in leather and dirt, the glint of steel and silver tucked into waistbands and curved around the front of a beast of a car like bared teeth. Bobby’s already in John’s ear, concerned tones filtering into humid summer air half drowned out by the dogs howling their greeting to friends gone too long. Sam looks at her, brief flash of white teeth over flushed red face and bangs falling into his eyes. His mouth opens, to say hello or who knows what, but John’s already got them unloading the car, duffels slung over their shoulders and the beat of boots up the narrow staircase.

They leave a week later and she hasn’t said a word to any of them save Sam, a shriek of embarrassment when he walked into the bathroom while she was in the shower.

\--

The second time they meet is three years later, youthful obedience soured to slight defiance on Sam’s skin. Sixteen years old and Amelia’s mom is on husband number three, leaving her relegated to a summer with Daddy while Mommy tries to find her youth in blue tinted tequila and sunset walks. Something’s shifted in her, arrogance traded in for introversion, look at me swapped out to invisibility. Bobby’s at a loss still, sixteen-year old girls are only a remembered conquest from the back of his dad’s Cadillac. He can’t reconcile that image with his daughter, unruly hair a tangle of auburn heaviness just like her mother, but he sees himself in her mouth and her eyes, stubborn and fierce underneath a skin of spun glass.

Sam watches her uncertainly, skittering around the edge of her world with words half spoken turning to ash on his tongue. Dean teaches her to drive, stutter stop around the salvage yard with a clash of gears and teeth clenched in a permanent grimace on Dean’s face. Amelia’s smile lights up the sky as it shifts from blue to orange red; Dean casts a long shadow.

Sam watches her; nose buried in a book but his eyes following her movement, tracking a ripple of change through his world. She watches Dean; smooth shift from clutch to gas under dust coated tennis shoes, a circle of tires in the dust. Dean watches the horizon.

\---

The third time they meet, Dean’s got six months left on his sentence, ‘til fate comes calling. The world’s gone crazy with demons; the silent crackle of not talking about how Sam’s changed choking the oxygen out of their air. It’s worse for Sam though, an extra year of memories and avoiding his own eyes in the mirror, afraid of who’ll be looking back.

They’re leaving a trail of dust and blood behind them, nobody watching over their shoulders except those with sharpened claws and poison tipped teeth. Amelia’s full blossom, awkward teenager left in the dust for a smart girl in smart suits who still looks out of place on Bobby’s porch. He’s apparently let her in on the secret by now; she doesn’t even blink when Dean starts stripping his gun down at the kitchen table with a singular intensity.

Her focus has changed now, eyes drifting back and forth between Dean and Sam but she’s watching their hands now; watching the combined weight of twenty years training lay their weapons down to bare metal and build them back up again into something deadly and sinister on the table that once held Sunday dinner and Bobby’s attempt at normal for a thirteen year old girl. Sam catches her eye, accidentally on purpose, watches her track his gaze to the staircase. He corners her in the darkness of the upstairs hallway with rough hands on her fragile shoulders, callous catching on silk and he can’t believe she doesn’t see the void she’d have to jump to live in their world. Amelia pushes up against him, mouth tilting up toward his followed by the curve of her body. Her eyes skitter across his face; following the clench of his jaw in the shadows. He leans closer, breathes his answer across the soft swell of her lip. _No._

She isn’t asking for him or for Dean this time; now she just wants the hunt and he owes more to Bobby than to let her follow him down into the fire.


End file.
